Once upon a time I worked on a pleasant island filled with mostly pleasant people. I would boat over from a larger island, where my temporary residence was located, under the care of a local character who was the father, uncle, and cousin to a surprising number of people in both ports. I would be paid, in cash, $45 a week along with "something special".
That "something special" was a live chicken, which would sit in the bow with me on the way back to the larger island. I was supposed to use it for food during the week, but I was not wanting for meals [keeping the clergy overfed was an island tradition], had bad memories of caring for my grandparents' feral, malevolent chickens, and was more than willing to donate my weekly chicken to a local family in need.
As my work on that island was on Sundays and Wednesdays, I spent a concentrated amount of time making visits to the various parishioners. Since half the island, at least, considered themselves members of the church, with only a fraction of those actually attending weekly services, these visits were a challenge to the diocesan-owned Suzuki Samurai that was entrusted to me. This was especially so since it was also an island tradition not to fix potholes. Instead, an enterprising fellow from the department of works would come by every once in awhile to paint a bright, orange circle around the hole. Given that Samurais had a suspension rather like those of my ancient Matchbox cars, I would take my time.
As there was a large, transient tourist and winter population that was not served by any clergy, I began to experiment with ways of engaging with them. There was only one hotel on the island in those days, most of the transients lived in time-share condos or onboard their boats, and they were spread over a considerable area. Yet, as in any place filled, however temporarily, with expatriates, there are always hang-outs; the smaller the geographic area, the fewer the hang-outs.
On an island this size, there was only one.
It was a bar and restaurant on the opposite side of the island from the main harbor. While the island is hardly as noisy as its neighbors, Skinny Legs was in the quiet portion. It was named after its two founders and their notorious, low-muscle appendages; mainland guys who, like so many I have met working in churches and boats in that part of the world, gave up their jobs in some metro area, moved temporarily to paradise, and never left. In keeping with this sense of quiet, they did not fry their food and did not own a blender.
That's probably wise, as Skinny Legs had a definite cache, looking as it did like one of those places castaways build in Hollywood movies. As there were no true walls and little in the way of a roof, the grinding of a blender would have harshed too much mellow. [There was a TV set, however, secured over the bar with a weathered 2x4 bolted over it, but it was only for major sporting events.]
It was here that the time-sharers, the boating community, the smugglers, the wannabe pirates, and the trust fund burn-outs would gather in the evenings to eat and drink, trade in gossip and raw information, and generally embrace the slow style of living that, at least in those days, marked island life. I soon learned that, if I were to have any sort of outreach program, it would require me to belong to that confederacy. Honestly, that's the only reason.
Then I had the first layer of revelation about the movement of Christianity in the midst of community. I have spent most of my adult life working in the Episcopal Church as a school chaplain, administrator, seminary lecturer, and particularly as a parish priest. In other words, in very formal roles. However, as I have also edited a literary journal, built and shaped guitars, attempted to crack the New Wave Music scene in New York, and surfed beaches around the world, I have been embedded with alternate communities of indolent poets, self-destructive musicians, and the hodadies, groms, and shredders that are universal in wave-riding.
While the church folk with whom I have worked have generally been spiritually articulate, if modest, in their pilgrimage, the greater, more random, communities rarely have the language, background, education, or familiarity with the milieu of communal worship that permits them anything close to a common language. They also tend to be burdened by a simple, child-like understanding of God and covenant, gain much of their spiritual learning from idiotic movies and TV shows, and are burdened with a nebulous guilt about their own choices and behavior. Since that sense of guilt has no relief valve, it is suppressed.
As a firefighter once said to me, when I was serving as a company chaplain, "The fellas appreciate you being here, since they all know they're going to Hell, anyway."
I was never sure of the context of that observation. Most of the members of the firehouse were husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. They lived in well-tended homes, mowed their lawns regularly, paid their taxes, watched football games on Sundays, and served as scoutmasters, karate instructors, and community volunteers. They handed out turkeys to the needy at Thanksgiving and toys to children in want at Christmas. They risked their lives for others. They lived side-by-side with my parishioners and did not seem any different.
It was just, because of experience, upbringing, or absence of opportunity, since they did not belong to any community of faith, they automatically assumed that there was no eternal role for them and no God with whom to speak. Hence, they were to be consigned to Hell. It seemed a form of self-excommunication.
It was the same on the island. An entire body of people meeting at those tables who had surrendered to the notion that God was beyond them and that, as redemption was impossible, every temporal portion of their life was to be lived in a toxic nihilism. It was remarkable.
So, into this community I made my way as a fellow expatriate, and in between tales of boat life and marine engineering, of fishing tactics and the ones that got away, managed to engage in spiritual conversation with those who saw themselves as outsiders to the faith. While the conviviality and companionship were welcome, as was the food [although I ordered no chicken dishes], it became obvious why Jesus' initial ministry was to those who were not or could not be members of the Temple.
Many years have unraveled since, and Skinny Legs is still there, having weathered changes in economy, the increasing population and construction on the island, and at least one devastating hurricane. There are still no blenders. There is also, among those who find themselves, as in other places at the end of civilization, a community of people searching for meaning and defying emptiness in the best ways they can. An entire community waiting to hear that they, too, matter in the covenant.
